Not that you haven't noticed, Gentle Reader, but the world is coming apart. Again. Beginning with the Middle East, where, to put it as diplomatically as possible, all hell is about to break loose on Israel's border with Hamasland, aka Gaza. You can see war coming by the rockets' red glare, hear the bombs bursting in air as the first deaths are tallied. How many more before the hurly-burly's done, the battle's lost or won?

Hundreds of explosive-laden rockets have been fired at random this year into Israel's Negev, its arid South. This week, as was bound to happen, one of them struck an apartment building in a little Israeli border town with fatal results.

Meanwhile, the Israelis have been responding with targeted raids against Gaza's terrorist leaders, doubtless hoping to disrupt Hamas' command rather than having to launch still another full-scale invasion of Gaza, which would be Gaza War No. 3 by my uncertain count. Like the first two, it would come complete with casualties military and civilian on both sides, and all the unpredictable dangers of a war spiraling out of anybody's control. As if any war were ever uncontrollable.

. .

An antiseptic term like collateral damage can't cover the real and painful suffering already being experienced on both sides of Israel's southern border, And the toll is about to grow, Events are already taking on an unstoppable momentum of their own.

. .

Gaza's war-lovers have set out to make life within range of their rockets unlivable. Israeli civilians in the country's south dare not move far beyond the nearest air raid shelter. Families huddle, schools close, children cover their ears, and all wait for the next siren to sound, if it does at all before another blast reverberates. And the range of Hamas' missiles continues to expand -- until not just Israel's coastal cities are hit but the suburbs of Tel Aviv, where sirens are sounding again and the public shelters have been reopened.

No country can live that way, and it's clear that the Israelis, while they have put up with a lot, don't propose to put up with any more of this. Not without a forceful response. Reserves are being called up, up to 75,000 of them now, and once Egypt's prime minister ends his visit to show that country's support for Gaza, the ground war could begin. And all bets will be off. Or as that noted military analyst Bette Davis might put it, "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night!"

. .

In short, there's more news to come out of the tough neighborhood known as the Middle East, and it's not likely to be good news. Israel waits like a coiled spring, the Gazans stock up on food and necessities, the curtain is about to go up on another tragedy.

. .

At this point the only faint hope of preserving the peace, or what has passed for it in that part of the world these past few years, is that Israel's air campaign will be punishing enough, precise enough, effective enough, and go on long enough to make a ground campaign unnecessary to restore the uneasy truce that Gaza's rocket-launching crazies have just about blown apart.

Behind the scenes, despite all the bellicose talk from their leaders, Egyptian and Turkish envoys, at the urging of American ones, may yet get Hamas to call off its attacks, but the odds against that are long. How reason with the unreasonable?

. .

This is the world after the Arab Spring, which brought hope and danger in at least equal measure. So long as aggression is tolerated, as it has been for so long as rocket barrage after rocket barrage has fallen on Israel's civilian population without an effective response, the pressure on the Jewish state to strike back will increase. Till the inevitable explosion erupts. And it looks as if it's about to. Once again.

. .

How bad the looming war will be, and how long it might go on, will depend not just on the fortunes of war but of diplomacy. An increasingly isolated Israel, unsure of its security, knowing it can depend only on itself, is bound to strike out alone at some point rather than wait any longer. Just as it has done in the past.

The moral of the story: The surest road to war is to ignore threats to peace. And now these accumulating threats against Israeli civilians, and actual attacks, are about to bear the usual, bitter fruit of aggression too long ignored. Israeli tanks are already rolling into position. More rockets have fallen -- on Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheba . . . The day's news begins to read like the Book of Judges, full of war and rumors of war.

It may be only a matter of days, maybe hours, before the dogs of war are unleashed. Havoc is about to ensue. And nobody has written the end of this tragedy. For we are only at the beginning of this act.

the Pal-Hamassholes are releasing TV propaganda directed towards Israeli citizens, threatening to come and kill them in their beds at night (again)

The Israelis should take any and all such terrorist cell operatives and string them up to the lamp posts and skin them alive , in public . Then leave them there . This would be deterrence. Find out who the families of the terrs are and target their homes for complete destruction with air strikes as well . Make the cost so high not even the most avid Muz fanatic is willing to bear it .
Public and immediate hanging , by the settlers in the settlements of any captures terrs should be allowed . An Uzi in the hands of EVERY non-Arab Israeli citizen , including non-Jews .

Behind the scenes, despite all the bellicose talk from their leaders, Egyptian and Turkish envoys, at the urging of American ones, may yet get Hamas to call off its attacks
***********
Hamas will call off attacks IF THE PRICE IS RIGHT. America will have to pony up millions for this, and the money will only be used to acquire more rockets for future use.

One side must win and win totally. It may well mean that the Israelis must go Roman and enslave and crush all resistance. Not good but this policy of land for peace has failed us. The Jews must win or be killed. That is how this has played out. Both sides are wrong-—there is enough guilt for all. But One must win and one must lose—and lose in such a way that revenge isn’t possible for a hundred years.

Make the cost so high not even the most avid Muz fanatic is willing to bear it

Not when they believe that death in battle will bring them to Allah. The high cost may only be to kill them all and eradicate their religion from the planet. And I do agree with eradicating the Islam cultists and their religion from the planet. Every damn one of them! It is because that is what they want to do to the world.

Well, Moose do care about their progress in the Conquer the Planet campaign. Dampen that down, as the early American hostilities in response to 9/11 did, and that dampens their ardor. BUT, it has to be maintained as a policy. It can’t be hit and run, or they only get bolder after the run.

10
posted on 11/17/2012 2:25:46 PM PST
by HiTech RedNeck
(How long before all this "fairness" kills everybody, even the poor it was supposed to help???)

If they put a couple loosely-targeted dumb bombs on every suspected enemy hangout it would put the fear of G-d into the people who get out in the street and celebrate terrorist acts like 9-11 or Fallujah.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

A difficult lesson

When I was in the Navy, I once witnessed a bar fight in downtown Olongapo (Philippines) that still haunts my dreams. The fight was between a big oafish Marine and a rather soft-spoken, medium sized Latino sailor from my ship.

All evening the Marine had been trying to pick a fight with one of us and had finally set his sights on this diminutive shipmate of mine... figuring him for a safe target. When my friend refused to be goaded into a fight the Marine sucker punched him from behind on the side of the head so hard that blood instantly started to pour from this poor man's mutilated ear.

Everyone present was horrified and was prepared to absolutely murder this Marine, but my shipmate quickly turned on him and began to single-handedly back him towards a corner with a series of stinging jabs and upper cuts that gave more than a hint to a youth spent boxing in a small gym in the Bronx.

Each punch opened a cut on the Marine's startled face and by the time he had been backed completely into the corner he was blubbering for someone to stop the fight. He invoked his split lips and chipped teeth as reasons to stop the fight. He begged us to stop the fight because he could barely see through the river of blood that was pouring out of his split and swollen brows.

Nobody moved. Not one person.

The only sound in the bar was the sickening staccato sound of this sailor's lightning fast fists making contact with new areas of the Marine's head. The only sound I have heard since that was remotely similar was from the first Rocky film when Sylvester Stallone was punching sides of beef in the meat locker.

Finally the Marine's pleading turned to screams.... a high, almost womanly shriek. And still the punches continued relentlessly.

Several people in the bar took a few tentative steps as though they wanted to try to break it up at that point, but hands reached out from the crowd and held them tight. I'm not ashamed to say that mine were two of the hands that held someone back.

You see, in between each blow the sailor had begun chanting a soft cadence: "Say [punch] you [punch] give [punch] up [punch]... say [punch] you [punch]were [punch] wrong [punch]".

He had been repeating it to the Marine almost from the start but we only became aware of it when the typical barroom cheers had died down and we began to be sickened by the sight and sound of the carnage.

This Marine stood there shrieking in the corner of the bar trying futilely to block the carefully timed punches that were cutting his head to tatters... right down to the skull in places. But he refused to say that he gave up... or that he was wrong.

Even in the delirium of his beating he believed in his heart that someone would stop the fight before he had to admit defeat. I'm sure this strategy had served him well in the past and had allowed him to continue on his career as a barroom bully.

Finally, in a wail of agony the Marine shrieked "I give up", and we gently backed the sailor away from him.

I'm sure you can guess why I have shared this story today.

I'm not particularly proud to have been witness to such a bloody spectacle, and the sound of that Marine's woman-like shrieks will haunt me to my grave. But I learned something that evening that Israel had better learn for itself if it is to finally be rid of at least one of its tormentors:

This is one time an Arab aggressor must be allowed to be beaten so badly that every civilized nation will stand in horror, wanting desperately to step in and stop the carnage... but knowing that the fight will only truly be over when one side gives up and finally admits defeat.

Just as every person who had ever rescued that bully from admitting defeat helped create the cowardly brute I saw that evening in the bar, every well-intentioned power that has ever stepped in and negotiated a ceasefire for an Arab aggressor has helped create the monsters we see around us today.

President Lahoud of Lebanon, a big Hezbollah supporter and a close ally of Syria, has been shrieking non-stop to the UN Security Council for the past two days to get them to force Israel into a cease fire.

Clearly he has been reading his autographed copy of 'Military Success for Dummies Arab Despots' by the late Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Ever since Nasser accidentally discovered the trick in '56, every subsequent Arab leader has stuck to his tried and true formula for military success:

Instigate a war.

Once the war is well underway and you are in the process of having your ass handed to you... get a few world powers to force your western opponent into a cease fire.

Whatever you do, don't surrender or submit to any terms dictated by your enemy. That would ruin everything! All you have to do is wait it out and eventually the world will become sickened at what is being done to your soldiers and civilian population... and will force a truce.

Once a truce has been called you can resume your intransigence (which probably caused the conflict in the first place), and even declare victory as your opponent leaves the field of battle.

This tactic has never failed. Not once.

In fact it worked so will for the Egyptians in 1973, that to this day they celebrate the Yom Kippur War - a crushing defeat at the hands of Israel - as a military victory! No kidding... it's a national holiday over there!

President Lahoud has already begun to shriek like a school girl to the UN Security Council to "Stop the violence and arrange a cease-fire, and then after that we'll be ready to discuss all matters."

Uh huh. Forgive me if I find that a tad hard to swallow. He allowed Hezbollah to take over his country. He allowed the regular Lebanese army to provide radar targeting data for the Hezbollah missile that struck the Israeli destroyer. He has turned a blind eye while Iranian and Syrian weapons, advisers and money have poured into his country.

And now that his country is in ruins he wants to call it a draw.

As much as it may sicken the world to stand by and watch it happen, strong hands need to hold back the weak-hearted and let the fight continue until one side finally admits unambiguous defeat.

One must win and one must loseand lose in such a way that revenge isnt possible for a hundred years.

This is called the "Limbaugh Doctrine" (for Rush Limbaugh). Against intractable foes, peace is only brought by complete, total victory of one side. I agree with you (and Rush).

Either the Jews will be wiped out, and Israel destroyed (the goal of ALL Paletinian (Arab) organizations--and a long-time consistent majority of the (Palestinian) Arabs) or the (Palestinian) Arabs will be....

19
posted on 11/17/2012 5:13:34 PM PST
by AnalogReigns
(because the real world is not digital...)

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